Tomorrow morning, June 14, 2019, I set off on a journey that began in New York the early winter of 1947. Questions from a lecture by my friend, Professor Mark Christensen haunt me as I pack my suitcase and map my route: What is my state of mind before I leave? Am I on a …
NEW RELEASE: CHICKENHOUSE CHRONICLES, BOOK II, “PAWNS”
A few years before my mother died I began interviewing her and making notes. After her death in January 2010 I discovered a treasure trove; 200 years of our family history locked in the chickenhouse—about seventy feet from where we had visited in the old farmhouse. Over the next eight years I studied and catalogued …
Book Release
This print book includes the first singles catalogue that my stepfather ordered after he returned to his farm from World War Two in October 1945 and began his search for a wife. The $2.99 PDF download includes the compete book plus all the singles publications he ordered and a preview of Pawns (The Farm, 1950s), …
WWII Veterans and PTSD
I recently read Thomas Childers Soldier From The War Returning (2009) in which he explores the lives of three Second World War veterans and their families. The book documents a part of our collective past—an inconvenient truth—that has been airbrushed from our national memory. Yet millions of Baby Boomers grew up in the shadow of …
My Mother’s PTSD
I’ve prayed so much that her life would straighten itself out – the more I think of it the more I feel it is possible her war experience unconsciously to her was eating out her vitals – how tragic life is for the world. Henry O. Philips, January 23, 1943 Written by my grandfather, a …
Chickenhouse Chronicles—-Genesis
A few months after my mother, Barbara, died in 2010 I discovered a time capsule—including my grandparent’s urns— locked in the chickenhouse on our old homestead in northern Minnesota. (I stopped calling her Mom the spring of 1962. In 1960 she had been committed to Fergus Falls State Hospital—we children had been sent to foster …
First Thanksgiving Rememberance 1937 Thanksgiving Celebration, Brussels, Belgium
After my mother died in 2010 I discovered this church service bulletin tucked in a mouse-stained scrapbook, locked in the Chickenhouse on our old family homestead in northern Minnesota, USA. Holland played an important part in the first pilgrims–Separatists from England’s religious persecution. Apparently those roots were still celebrated in 1937. Are they still celebrated …
1930s International Traveler Advice
Here is a four page excerpt from the front matter of my grandmother’s diary titled, “My Trip Abroad.”
SS American Farmer Played Important Role in Family
> SS American Farmer On September 24, 1937, my grandmother, mother, and aunt traveled to Europe aboard the SS American Farmer. My grandmother, Elsie, kept a detailed account in her diary. In this excerpt, Pol, fifteen years old, is my aunt and Bar, seventeen years old, will be my mother ten years later. “Third day …
Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference 2013
This past week I participated in a writing workshop titled “Nonfiction and the Archeology of Memory,” taught by Joni Tevis. Joni’s website, http://www.jonitevis.com/ Joni’s class was a perfect fit for the project I am working on, reconstructing our family’s past from the wealth of primary documents I have. The biggest takeaway was when Joni told …